Streamers rabbit hole

@rtilden 

I own a Bluesound node, and have owned a number of streamers. I would recommend an Aurender... N200 (used would be fine). I have had Aurlic, Grimm, Linn, dCS and other streamers in my system... I have a N100 in my headphone system... Yes, they are worth it and a significant upgrade from the Bluesound products. A benefit to Aurrender is the Conductor control app. It is highly regarded and becoming more powerful all the time. 

So many of us have gotten hooked on this pursue because we are so happy with the sound we have, and then upgraded. The difference it huge... although we could not see how.. .until we heard it. 

@ghdprentice- Thanks for responding.  I see you have a nice system, and you must have run your Node through the DAC and Preamp.  Did you also have the Teddy Pardo LPS mod?

Many folks here praise the Aurender, Lumin and sometimes Innuos.  I had interpreted from comments that Innuos’ operating system was by far the easiest and least glitchy.  I have practically zero tolerance for glitches when I sit to listen.  Any comment on how difficult or glitchy the Conductor app is these days?  Thanks again.  

Do you have experience or a sense of how much better it might be to use a good streamer like Innuos or others at a price point somewhere maybe $5K-$8K?

@rtilden  If I were you I’d buy a used Innuos Pulsar or Aurender N200 and if they don’t provide a significant upgrade you can sell for little loss if you buy well.  I’d bet you’d hear a very meaningful improvement at that level as you should for the price.

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/650243740-innuos-pulsar/

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisbfbg4-aurender-n200-music-servers-docks

@soix -  Hard to argue with your suggestion.  I try hard to make good moves and avoid mistakes and having to sell gear....but, I'm afraid you're right that I simply won't know for myself until I do that.  

The new Innuos streamers are surprisingly expensive, which leads back to your suggestion.  I'd like to read some reviews on how the Pulsar stacks up against these newer Innuos streamers. That would probably make me most confident.  Thanks again for your thoughts and comments!

Bits is bits.  The DAC doesn't care where the bits come from.  All of those expensive streamers are just Linux boxes running custom software.  No end of suckers in audio.